Healing After Crisis: Rebuilding Culture with Compassion and Connection
- Client: WAST
The challenge: Creating space for recovery, reflection and respectful behaviour
After the immense pressure of the pandemic, the organisation was seeing signs of burnout, moral injury, and fractured team dynamics. Unhelpful behaviours and subcultures had taken root. Leaders wanted to rebuild — not just by reinforcing positive behaviours, but by truly supporting people to process what they’d been through and co-create a safer, more compassionate workplace.
What we did: Listening deeply, co-designing change, and embedding trust
We partnered with a cross-organisational team to lead a wide-reaching culture reset — one grounded in healing, inclusion and shared ownership.
- We listened — using psychologist-led interviews, organisational listening circles and community engagement to surface what was getting in the way of healthy, respectful culture.
- We co-designed change — working with the Trust board, leadership and frontline teams to shape system-wide recommendations and a refreshed behaviour framework everyone could stand behind.
- We embedded sustainable practices — training internal influencers to carry forward compassionate conversations and ongoing culture sensing, so the organisation could keep evolving from within.
The impact: A more connected, compassionate and future-ready culture
- Frontline and leadership teams reported greater trust, confidence, and ownership in shaping the future culture
- A new, co-created behaviours framework is now live and embraced across the organisation
- Organisational listening is now a core capability, supporting ongoing responsiveness
- Most importantly, there’s a genuine sense of healing and re-connection, paving the way for a healthier, more inclusive workplace.
